Challenges in Norm Formation and Adherence

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Krumm ◽  
Katrin Terwiel ◽  
Guido Hertel
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Coping With Stress ◽  
Dimensional Solution ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Exploratory Factor Analyses ◽  
Importance Ratings

Due to the growing globalization of business processes, teamwork increasingly requires intercultural skills. Furthermore, many teams rely predominantly on electronic collaboration (virtual teams), requiring team members to develop and adhere to norms in a cue-deprived environment. In the current study, we conducted an online survey with 171 participants who fell into one of two subgroups of cross-cultural teams: members of either traditional or virtual teams. We compared the two groups of team members with regard to their importance ratings of several competencies for team performance. Starting with a large set of intercultural competencies derived from the literature, exploratory factor analyses yielded a four-dimensional solution (working conscientiously, coping with stress and ambiguity, openness and perspective taking, and knowledge about other cultures). Among those clusters, only the cluster working conscientiously yielded substantial differences between traditional and virtual-team members, indicating specific requirements for cross-cultural collaboration for virtual as compared to traditional teams.

Virtual Teams and Knowledge Communication

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Miikka J. Lehtonen ◽  
Constance E. Kampf
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Virtual Work ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Support Teams ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Semiotic Perspective ◽  
Knowledge Communication

How does culture affect virtual teams and the knowledge communication processes in which they engage? As virtual spaces are increasingly used to support teams and establish collaboration in cross-cultural projects, the notion of cross-cultural communication can be understood as shifting from contextual perspective to a semiotic perspective. That is to say, although the team members are using the same vocabulary they might attach different meanings to and have different knowledge about them thus highlighting the importance of approaching virtual teams and collaboration from a semiotic perspective. To look at how knowledge about virtual work is established in a multinational context, the authors interviewed members of a team that connects Finland and India. Results reveal five objects shared between the team members with varying knowledge about them. By making these differences in knowledge visible through semiotics the authors are calling for a more nuanced understanding of cross-cultural collaboration that draws on and extends the existing body of knowledge on virtual teams and collaboration.

Communication in Global Virtual Activity Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 239-254
Author(s):  
Marie C. Paretti ◽  
Lisa D. McNair
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Activity System ◽  
Global Virtual Teams ◽  
Activity Systems ◽  
Distributed Work ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Cultural Contact ◽  
Communication Practices

This chapter uses activity theory as a lens to understand the implications of both virtual collaboration and cross-cultural contact for communication in global virtual teams. Rather than adopting a set of heuristics or guidelines that may readily become dated as cultures and technologies shift in the flat world, we argue that both those who study and those who engage in global virtual teams should critically analyze the entire activity system. We then provide meta-cognitive approaches to both distributed work and cross-cultural contact that team managers and team members can use to establish flexible communication practices appropriate to the activity system at hand, and that researchers can use to account for the range of factors that impact team performance.

Process-Aware Information Systems for Virtual Teamwork

2005 ◽  
pp. 2314-2320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schahram Dustdar
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Collaborative Systems ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Work Activities ◽  
Virtual Teamwork ◽  
The Right

The question of the “right” organizational form and the appropriate information systems support remains of paramount importance and still constitutes a challenge for virtually all organizations, regardless of industrial background. Organizations distribute their required work activities among groups of people (teams), with teams constituting the main building block for implementing the work (tasks). In most cases, team members are organized as “virtual (project) teams.” These teams are under heavy pressure to reduce time to market of their products and services and lower their coordination costs. Some characteristics of distributed virtual teams are that team (member) configurations change quite frequently and that team members report to different managers, maybe even in different organizations. From an information systems’ point of view, distributed virtual teams often are self-configuring networks of mobile and “fixed” people, devices, as well as applications. A newly emerging requirement is to facilitate not just mobility of content (i.e., to support a multitude of devices and connectivity modes) to team members, but also to provide contextual information on work activities to all distributed virtual team members (Dustdar, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c). By context, we mean traceable and continuous views of associations (relationships) between artifacts (e.g., documents, database records), resources (e.g., people, roles, skills), and business processes. Context is composed of information on the “who, when, how, and why.” The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows: The next section provides an overview of related work on classification systems of collaborative systems and provides an overview on evaluation aspects of current collaborative systems for virtual teamwork. Section 3 discusses some issues and problems related to the integration of artifacts, resources, and processes. Section 4 presents one proposed solution. Finally, Section 5 discusses some future trends and concludes the chapter.

The project manager and virtual translation teams

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 37-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Rodríguez-Castro
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Project Manager ◽  
Virtual Character ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Modern Project ◽  
Geographically Distributed ◽  
Survey Results

The project manager (PM) has become an inevitable and indispensible component of translation workflow due to the rapid industrialization of the translation industry over the last two decades. A PM serves as the mediator between the translator(s), the language service provider (LSP), and the end client. The human resources of language industry projects are increasingly organized into geographically distributed and culturally heterogeneous “virtual teams”. The virtual character of these teams has created new challenges for group dynamics. This paper attempts to define the fluid role of the modern project manager by focusing on translators’ attitudes toward the PM in virtual teamwork situations, as revealed by an online survey. The survey looked at the factors of (a) communication workflow; (b) matching the skills of team members to projects; (c) interpersonal relationships; (d) translator appreciation, and (e) the PM’s level of team support and supervision. Survey results were analyzed via a regression model as a means of exploring the important elements of a PM’s role in virtual translation teams from the perspective of the team members themselves.

Communication in Global Virtual Activity Systems

2011 ◽  
pp. 24-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie C. Paretti ◽  
Lisa D. McNair
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Activity System ◽  
Global Virtual Teams ◽  
Activity Systems ◽  
Distributed Work ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Cultural Contact ◽  
Communication Practices

This chapter uses activity theory as a lens to understand the implications of both virtual collaboration and cross-cultural contact for communication in global virtual teams. Rather than adopting a set of heuristics or guidelines that may readily become dated as cultures and technologies shift in the flat world, we argue that both those who study and those who engage in global virtual teams should critically analyze the entire activity system. We then provide meta-cognitive approaches to both distributed work and cross-cultural contact that team managers and team members can use to establish flexible communication practices appropriate to the activity system at hand, and that researchers can use to account for the range of factors that impact team performance.

Process-Aware Information Systems for Virtual Teamwork

2011 ◽  
pp. 3125-3131
Author(s):  
Schahram Dustdar
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Collaborative Systems ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Work Activities ◽  
Virtual Teamwork ◽  
The Right

The question of the “right” organizational form and the appropriate information systems support remains of paramount importance and still constitutes a challenge for virtually all organizations, regardless of industrial background. Organizations distribute their required work activities among groups of people (teams), with teams constituting the main building block for implementing the work (tasks). In most cases, team members are organized as “virtual (project) teams.” These teams are under heavy pressure to reduce time to market of their products and services and lower their coordination costs. Some characteristics of distributed virtual teams are that team (member) configurations change quite frequently and that team members report to different managers, maybe even in different organizations. From an information systems’ point of view, distributed virtual teams often are self-configuring networks of mobile and “fixed” people, devices, as well as applications. A newly emerging requirement is to facilitate not just mobility of content (i.e., to support a multitude of devices and connectivity modes) to team members, but also to provide contextual information on work activities to all distributed virtual team members (Dustdar, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c). By context, we mean traceable and continuous views of associations (relationships) between artifacts (e.g., documents, database records), resources (e.g., people, roles, skills), and business processes. Context is composed of information on the “who, when, how, and why.” The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows: The next section provides an overview of related work on classification systems of collaborative systems and provides an overview on evaluation aspects of current collaborative systems for virtual teamwork. Section 3 discusses some issues and problems related to the integration of artifacts, resources, and processes. Section 4 presents one proposed solution. Finally, Section 5 discusses some future trends and concludes the chapter.

Blogs

2011 ◽  
pp. 720-730
Author(s):  
Ashok Darisipudi ◽  
Sushil Kumar Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Team Collaboration ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Data Archives ◽  
Communication Modes ◽  
Collaborative Working ◽  
User Friendly

Blogs are evolving beyond “personal conversations” to tools which could support collaborative working in virtual project teams. Virtual teams need to adopt and understand new work practices, sharing attitudes and communication modes to effectively empower team participation. Companies are adopting blogs and wikis as tools for improving dialogue among workers, customers, and the public because they can affect information exchange and establish specially tailored, user-friendly data archives. Blogs could become a tool for a new way of communication, working collaboratively, sharing information and mutually supporting other team members. However, like any emerging technology tools, it will be a challenge to integrate blogs into existing business processes. This chapter discusses how blogs can be exploited for virtual team collaboration and discusses various issues and challenges that need to be resolved if blogs are to become an effective tool for virtual team collaboration.

scholarly journals Intercultural Challenges in Virtual Teams

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beata Krawczyk-Bryłka
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Goal Setting ◽  
Internal Communication ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Virtual Teamwork ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
Intercultural Collaboration ◽  
Communication Processes

Abstract Virtual teams are usually geographically dispersed and consist of members from different countries and cultures. They influences internal communication processes and can cause personal conflicts, misunderstandings or lack of trust. Intercultural diversity is also significant for goal setting and team effectiveness. The aim of this article is to check if virtual team members appreciate the cultural diversity or rather suffer from lack of team cohesion and mutual understanding. The article presents research conducted among specialists from IT sector who have experience in working in virtual teams. They perceive intercultural collaboration in virtual teams as the opportunity to exploit the potential of specialists from all over the world but they also point to some challenges related to cross-cultural virtual teamwork.

Are All Lockdown Teams Created Equally? Work Characteristics and Team Perceived Virtuality

2021 ◽  
pp. 104649642199789
Author(s):  
Patrícia L. Costa ◽  
Lisa Handke ◽  
Thomas A. O’Neill
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Organizational Support ◽  
Latent Profile Analysis ◽  
Profile Analysis ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Work Characteristics ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Latent Profile

Team virtuality has been mostly conceptualized as structural features, such as the percentage of time team members communicate via technology. However, the perception of distance and of information deficits (team perceived virtuality, TPV) may be an indispensable construct to understand virtual teams’ functioning. The lockdowns imposed on most countries due to COVID-19 created virtual teams with high degrees of structural virtuality. With structural virtuality held constant among teams, we explore configurations of work characteristics (autonomy, interdependence, and organizational support) that influence TPV. With a sample of 296 multinational workers, a Latent Profile Analysis identified four distinct profiles of those work characteristics. Those profiles related differently to TPV. Contrary to previous findings, interdependence seems to play an important role in these teams high in structural virtuality when their autonomy is also high, highlighting the pivotal role of frequent interaction among team members, under conditions of high structural virtuality.

Mobile Collaboration Support for Virtual Teams

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keng Siau ◽  
Min Ling
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Virtual Collaboration ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
Work Systems ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Development Teams ◽  
Geographically Distributed ◽  
Qualitative Technique ◽  
Sophisticated Technology

Organizations increasingly depend on virtual teams in which geographically distributed individuals use sophisticated technology to interact and collaborate. With the advancement of mobile and wireless technology, mobile support for collaboration among virtual team members is becoming increasingly important and popular. In this research, we study the values of mobile support for virtual team members. Using the qualitative technique, Value-Focused Thinking approach, proposed by Keeney, we interviewed 30 subjects who were involved in information systems development teams and asked them the values of mobile support for virtual collaboration. This study uses Alter's Work Systems Theory as the conceptual foundation.

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